


Red in Tooth and Claw

by draculard



Category: Brightburn (2019)
Genre: Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Gen, Graphic Descriptions of Insect Violence, Horror, Wasps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 14:10:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20427269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: When Brandon is five, he discovers a wasp nest in the backyard.





	Red in Tooth and Claw

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Canto 56 of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam," aka "The Way of the Soul":
> 
> Who trusted God was love indeed  
And love Creation's final law  
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw  
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed

When Brandon is five, he discovers a wasp nest in the backyard, hanging from an old hickory tree. Inside the house, behind the water-streaked kitchen window, Tori can see him staring up at it with those wide, solemn eyes. 

He’s a smart boy. He learned the difference between wasps and bees when he was two, after he climbed onto an old abandoned tractor in the barn and got swarmed by both of them. Tori still remembers how he sat there staring at the wasps like they were fireflies, his eyes tracking them with fascination. She remembers the slight quirk of his lips when they tried to sting him. He didn’t flinch when they went for his eyes.

_ “Let’s say a wasp invades a bee colony,” Brandon tells her later. The words sound strange in high piping, prepubescent voice. There’s a book open in his lap, a thick textbook meant for college students studying insects. It doesn’t surprise Tori to see it in Brandon’s tiny hands. “It’ll kill them, if they let it,” he says. “So you know what they do to defend themselves?” _

She watches a curious yellowjacket leave the nest. It flies down to Brandon, hovering around his head to investigate. From behind the dirty glass of the kitchen window, it looks like a seed floating on the wind. 

_ “They swarm it,” Brandon says. “They mob it. That’s all they can do. And eventually they get the wasp’s temperature so high that it dies.” _

The yellowjacket touches down in Brandon’s hair, crawls over his scalp. Brandon’s eyes flicker to it — emotionless, unafraid — and then back to the nest. 

_ “Why do they kill it?” Tori asks. _

_ “That’s nature,” Brandon says with a shrug. He looks so small in his Mickey Mouse sweater. There’s a bit of grape jelly on his chin from lunch, and Tori licks her thumb and wipes it off. “It’s kill or be killed,” says Brandon, and she wonders if (hopes that) he’s parroting some nature show he watched on TV.  _

_ “Wasps kill honeybees all the time,” says Brandon, smiling, eager to share his knowledge. “They’ll kill anything. That’s why we need them.” _

Outside, another yellowjacket joins its brother, questing down from the nest, down the hickory tree, to circle Brandon’s head. 

_ “We need them to kill honeybees?” Tori repeats, nonplussed. _

_ “Oh, don’t worry, Mom,” says Brandon; he grabs her hand with his own small one, squeezing it, comforting her the same way she comforts him after a nightmare. “Honeybees don’t feel pain.” _

Three more wasps leave their nest, flying down to Brandon faster than the ones before. Slowly, Brandon raises his hand the same way a different boy might raise his hand to pet a dog. A yellowjacket lands on that soft, pale flesh, and even from this far away, Tori can tell it’s trying to sting her son. Brandon observes its attempts with the indulgent patience of a father play-wrestling with his son.

_ As Brandon grows, he and Tori have so many conversations about wasps that they blur together, the details tumbling over each other incessantly in Tori’s mind. When he’s ten — five years from now — Brandon tells her: _

_ “Just because they’re social insects doesn’t mean they’re stupid. They only work for the queen so long as it benefits them. If they’re not getting what they want, they revolt.” _

Quickly, the wasp nest in the old hickory tree empties, the air filled with what seems like hundreds of black-and-yellow bodies emitting a toneless hum. They swarm Brandon’s head, covering him from view. Tori can see his hands moving slowly behind the cloud of insects, caressing them.

_ “Revolt against who?” Tori asks. “The queen?” _

_ She looks into those big, serious brown eyes as Brandon nods. His mouth is a straight line. She gets the feeling he’s trying not to smile. _

_ “Isn’t that their mother?” Tori asks. _

In the backyard, all she can see of Brandon is his feet, his tiny Spider-Man sneakers with lights in the heels. There are wasps crawling over his jeans, coating his arms, hiding his face from view. They’ve stopped trying to sting him.

They’re mobbing him, she realizes, and she turns away from the window at last. She washes the dishes, unconcerned, and doesn’t glance outside again. 

Maybe they’ll eat him, she tells herself. Maybe she’ll look outside in an hour and all that will be left is Brandon’s skin, his organs eaten away, his remnants swollen with wasps buzzing around inside him. Maybe he’ll seem alright, the wasps gone, something foreign buzzing behind his eyes; maybe tonight she’ll hug him and kiss him goodnight and a wasp will crawl out from between his lips, ready to kiss her, too. 

She closes her eyes. When she opens them, Brandon is still standing there, unharmed, and the wasps have fled their nests. 

He turns and smiles at her. He waves. She hears him call, “Hi, Mom!” from behind the dirty glass.

“Hi, baby,” Tori says.


End file.
